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TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 



SECESSION: 



THE REMEDY AND RESULT. 




NEW YORK : 
PUBLISHED BY JAMES MILLER 

(successor to 0. S. FRANCIS & CO.) 

522 BROADWAY. 

I80I. 



# \ 

^'^f 



Enteked, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, 

]5y JAMES MILLER, 

In the Clerk's Office of the n*i.*t!'ict Court of the tTnited StaWs for the 

Southern Dis rict of New York. 






"^ 



ADVERTISEMENT. ' 

Three of the witliin Tracts for the War 



entitled Question of the Day, were first printed 
on their dates, in the Dispatch, a newspaper 
published at Washington, North Carolina, and 
have been since copied in other newspapers in 
this country and Europe. The residue have 
not before appeared. This little volume is de- 
signed to put in a more permanent and suc- 
cinct form, acccFsible to all, a thorough dis- 
cussion of the causes and result of secession 
and the present civil war. 

New York, May^ 1861. 



TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 



I. 

THE QUESTION. OF THE DAY. 

The people of the Northern States have not 
yet spoken on the grave issues of the day ; and 
many of us beheve that a large proportion of 
the sober, conservative, law-abiding and pat- 
riotic citizens of the South are as yet held in 
forced silence. 

The conduct of some of the present leaders 
of the South in the seceding States, has shocked 
the moral sense of the North. The strong 
phalanx who opposed Lincoln and his party 
and abolition, with its cry of dissolution of the 
Union and destruction of the slave power, 



8 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

never believed that the South would be so 
prompt to attempt such political suicide, and 
obey the clamors of such fanatics as the aboli- 
tionists — their mortal foes. We have been 
incredulous — have even doubted the verity or 
earnestness of their acts ; but of several of 
the States we have ceased to doubt, and have 
only to deplore that our day should witness 
such shameless degeneracy in the children of 
the Father of his Country. 

Without other commentj forther than to say 
that whilst the whole people of the North, 
East, and West, conscious of their vast pre- 
dominance, are united in making every reason- 
able effort in forbearing magnanimity to con- 
ciliate and adjust all differences, they are none 
the less united in the patriotic purpose that, 
should all such efforts fliil, as one man to obey 
the letter and spirit of the Constitution. 

This is the simple and obvious duty, we be- 
lieve, of every patriotic American ; and with- 
out it there can be no government. We are 
often taunted by the assertion that no power 
exists in the Constitution to coerce a State ; 



THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 9 

that each State is a sovereign, and can secede 
or rescind the ohligations of the Constitution 
at pleasure ; and when a State lias formally 
seceded, all its citizens are ipso facto owt o^ 
the Union ! released from all obligations for 
the pjist or futme, and there is no longer any 
Union or Federal Government, or, we may say, 
Constitution whatever. Under such ])retences 
they claim absolute impunity and full recog- 
nition as independent sovereignties at home 
and abroad. Let us briefly examine these pro- 
tensions by the light of history and leason ; 
they are fundamental ; the question is worthy 
of more serious inquiry than may be given it 
in merely political declamation. Our discus- 
sion shall be brief: 

" Tlie x\rticles of Confederation and perpet- 
ual union between the States" of 1778 {)ro- 
vided by its second article : " That each State 
retains its sovereignty, freedom, and inde}>end- 
ence," &o. ; and all its following articles cre- 
atine: a Conoi;ress and investing it with execu- 
live, judicial, and legislative power, were ren- 
dered nugatory, by depriving this body of all 



10 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

power of enforcing its resolves. These articles 
were created by the States as sovereign States, 
who acted in Confess through the Revolution 
only as States. It was simply a league or 
alliance for the common protection, formed by 
independent States, 

Without reciting the familiar history of its 
inefficiency in the revolutionary struggle, we 
recur to this old Confederation to fix the fact 
indelibly in our history, that this Confederation, 
or former Union, was the ^rs^ and last attempt 
of the States, as States, to form a Union. The 
dogma of complete State sovereignty was then 
found to be suicidal to any Union formed sim- 
ply between States. How could it exist in a 
Union formed by all the people residing in the 
several States ? 

After the peace in 1786, 16th October, 
Virginia, in the Act of her Assembly providing 
for the election of delegates to a convention to 
form a Constitution, in its preamble has this 
language : " And whereas the General Assem- 
bly, taking into view the actual situation of 
the Confederacy, as well as reflecting on the 



THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 11 

alarming representations made from tiQ:ie to 
time by the United States in Congress, par- 
ticularly in their act of the 15th day of Feb-' 
ruary last, can no longer douht that the crisis 
is arrived at which the good people of Amer- 
ica are to decide the solemn question, whether 
they will, by wise and magnanimous efforts, 
reap the just fruits of that independence which 
they have so gloriously acquired, and of that 
Union which they have cemented with so much 
of their common blood, or whether, by giving 
w^ay to unmanly jealousies and prejudices, or 
to partial and transitory interests, they will 
renounce the auspicious blessings prepared for 
them by the Kevolution, and furnish to its 
enemies an eventual triumph over those by 
whose virtue and valor it has been accom- 
plished ; and whereas the same noble and ex- 
tended policy, and the same fraternal and 
affectionate sentiments which originally deter- 
mined the citizens of this Commonwealth to 
unite with their brethren of the other States 
in establishing a Federal Grovernment, cannot 
but be felt with equal force now, as motives 



12 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

to lay aside every inferior consideration and to 
concur in such further concessions and provi- 
sions as may be necessary to secui'o the great 
object for which that g(n^ernment was institu- 
ted, and to render the United States as happy 
in peace as they have been glorious in war ; 

Be it enacted^ dr., That seven commission- 
ers be appointed by joint ballot to meet such 
deputies from other States at Philadelphia, 
and to join with them in " devising and dis^ 
cussing all such alterations and flirther provi- 
sions as may be necessary to render the Fede- 
ral Constitution adequate to the exigencies of 
the Union/' 

By virtue of this act, Washington, Patrick 
Henry, Randolph, Madison, and others, were 
elected Commissioners. We scarcely need an 
apology for reciting at length the pro[)hetic 
language of the prean:ible to this Act of a 
people, by her recent election, still true to her 
princi[)les. 

Tlie Continental Congress, by its Act of 
15th February, 1786, embodying a lengthened 
report of the utter impossibility of collecting 



THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 13 

revenue, or sustaining a central government 
under the Confederation, made dependent on 
the sovereign will of each State, closed with 
the Resolution : 

''That whilst Congress are denied the means 
of satisfying those engagements which they 
have constitutionally entered into for the com- 
mon benefit of the Union, they hold it to be 
their duty to warn their constituents'' (the 
States) " that the most fatal evils will inevita- 
bly flow fi'om a breach of public faith })ledged 
by solenm contract, and a violation of those 
principles of justice which are the only soli I 
basis of the honor and prosperity of the 
nation." 

This is an emphatic commentary on the 
doctrine of complete State sovereignty, and on 
the practical results of mere confederation of 
independent States, as States. 

The Old North State, true to her patriot 
sires and history, followed Virginia, by her Act 
of Gth January, 1787, for the election, by joint 
balliit, of five commissioners to meet at Phila- 
delphia on the 1st of May next, with such 
2 



14 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

deputies from other States, and with them '' to 

discuss and decide upon the most effectual 

means to remove the defects of our Federal 

Union, and to procure the enlarged purposes 

which it was intended to effect :" Wherehy 

Alexander Martin, William Blount, William 

Richardson Davie, Richard Dohhs Spaight, 

and Willie Jones, were elected such Deputies. 

This paper has already, perhaps, exceeded 

its just limits. In our next we will pursue our 

subject. 

RODOLPHUS. 

February 2Q, 1861. 



THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 15 



11. 

THE QUESTION" OF THE DAY. 

The Constitution of the United States, 
framed by the Convention of 1787, called pur- 
suant to the recommendation of the Congress 
of the Confederation, was submitted to that 
Congress on 25th September, 1787, and by 
their resolution transmitted to the Legislatures 
of the several States, in order to be submitted 
to a convention of delegates, chosen in each 
State by the p80})le thereof, in conformity to 
the resolves of the Convention. It was ratified 
by the people, who, in January ensuing, chose 
their first presidential electors, and commenced 
the government on the first Wednesday (4th) 
of March, 1789. 



16 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

The Constitution, in its opening, is expressed 
to be the exclusive creation of the People of 
the TJn'tel Slaves, in order to form a moi^c 
perfect Union in direct opposition to the 
former Confederation. 

The States — as States — are not parties to 
the Constitution. But the luhole peop)le in all 
the States ordain and estahlish this Constitu- 
tion of a new Federal Government, paramount 
to all the State Governments, whose subordi- 
nate existence is recognized therein, and there- 
by, directly from the people, invest this Fed- 
eral Government with supreme and exclusive 
powers in appropriate spheres. 

There is not a word in the instrument recog- 
nizing complete State sovereignty, or that this 
Union and Constitution is an alliance or Con- 
federation of independent States, acting in its 
ratification or creation by their several agents. 

The familiar history of the times shows 
that such political heresies were universally 
felt to be the very cardinal evils of the old 
Confederation, to be remedied by the Consti- 
tution. 



THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 17 

If, then, the States — as such — never formed 
this Union under the Constitution, is not the 
resolve of any State to secede entirely nuga- 
tory ? 

The Constitution, in its preamble, ordained 
and established by the whole people, in its 
7th Article, provides that the ratifications of 
"the conventions (of the people) of nine 
States shall be sufficient for the estahlisJiment 
of this Constitution between the States so 
ratifying the same." 

This organic ordinance of the people was 
thereby made supreme over all State govern- 
ments. It was '^ordained" and ^^estahlisJied/' 
in its own emphatic language, and provided 
the mode of its own amendment ; and also, 
that this Constitution and the laws " of the 
United States, which shall be made in pursu- 
ance thereof, with all treaties, shall be the 
supreme law of the land, and the judges in 
every State shall be bound thereby, any thing 
in the Constitution or Laws of any State to 
the contrary notwithstanding ." 

The Federal Government, created by thq 



18 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

Constitution, assumed all debts contracted 
before the adoption of the Constitution, and 
was invested with the power to lay and collect 
taxes and duties, to pay the debts and ])ro- 
vide for the common defence and general wel- 
fare — to borrow money, regulate foreign com- 
merce, coin money, and fix the standards of 
value and of weight — to establish post-offices 
and post-roads, create judicial tribunals, de- 
clare war, I'aise and su[)port armies and navy, 
and make rules for their government, and call 
forth the militia to execute the laws of the 
Union, suppress insurrection, and repel inva- 
sions, &c., &c., and to make and enforce all 
laws necessary and proper for carrying into 
effect all their poicers over all the people re- 
siding loithin the United States. 

This supreme Federal Government is, by 
the laws of Congress and of every State, ac- 
knowledged as supreme by the oath of office 
sworn to by every office-holder in the country, 
who, if of a State office, thereby swears first 
above all, to support this Constitution, and 
next, that of his State, and to perform his 



THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 19 

duty ; and if of a federal office^ swears his 
allegiance to this Federal Government. With 
such constant oath-takins; — the hi^^^hest and 
most solemn sanction on the conscience that 
man or God imposes — can any one at this day 
douht of the supremacy of this Federal Gov- 
ernment and the sacred obligation of every 
citizen to sustain it ? 

And, on the other hand, what shall be said 
of those citizens, many of them high in rank 
in the army and nav}', and holding civil and 
judicial offices of trust and distinction under 
the Constitution, who, pretending that their 
allegiance to their native States is superior, 
openly break their official oaths and join the 
declared enemies of the Constitution and the 
Union, by which, in many cases, for all their 
lives, they have been educated and maintained 
out of the Federal treasury ? We use plain 
language at the North, and adopt the words of 
the Constitution in calling them traitors — ^re- 
creants to their oaths and country, and deplore 
their contrast with the conduct of Miijor An- 
derson. 



20 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

Another question is immediately involved : 
Is not this Federal Constitution of government 
of perpetual obligation on every citizen ? It 
is so by the definition of the powers vested in 
it by the people. Unless this Government be 
perpetual and supreme, all treaties are dissolv- 
ed, and all lav/s and contracts by the Federal 
Government, disposing, as they constitutionally 
have forever, of vast territorial and other prop- 
erty, for over seventy years past, must be re- 
scinded, and the nation justly execrated by all 
civilized Governments, for setting up a gov- 
ernmental mockery to be repudiated on any 
caprice. Such a result is immediate and inevi- 
table to the opposite view, and all nations 
would hasten at the first signal of the adoption 
of such views, to exterminate such open trea- 
son to God and man. 

This very position is now assumed by ex- 
treme secessionists. Acknowledging at the 
same time the validity of all the past action 
of the Federal Government, most of which in 
its nature er-dures forever, thereby admitting, 
of necessity, the manifest, essential perpetuity 



THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 21 

of the Union and Government, in the same 
breath, with admirable consistency, they claim 
that, by reason of some sndden and stranoje 
discovery, henceforth this Union is no longer 
perpetual, and, by the sublime fiat of South 
Carolina, it is dissolved, and all foreign trea- 
ties and contracts with the United States are 
ipso facto dissolved, and glory in their self- 
elected position, only to be paralleled by that 
of Algerine pirates ! Is such outrageous non- 
sense to be received by any sober mind ? The 
cardinal essence of all Government is perpe- 
tuity. Without it, there is no government. 

By the constitutional provisions, the right 
of indefinite amendment is on the one hand 
secured ; a supreme judicial tribunal always 
open to settle all controversies on the construc- 
tion or effect of its provisions and the laws of 
Congress ; with full representation both of 
State and people, making and amending all 
their laws ; and, on the other hand, by its 
tenth article, vests forever in the Federal 
Government exclusively, all its granted pow- 
ers and such as are essential to their exercise, 



22 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

which include the most complete array of sov- 
ereign power ever vested in any Constitutional 
Government, and reserves all other powers ^' to 
the States " respectively, " or to the peo])le." 

In the words of Washington in 1796 : "The 
basis of our political systems is the right of the 
people to make and alter their constitutions 
of government ; hut the Constitution, luJitch 
at any time exists till changed by an explicit 
and authentic act of the lohole people, is sa- 
C7xdly obligatory upon all. The very idea of 
the power and the right of the people to estab- 
lish govQxnmQni, loresupposes the duty of every 
individual to oiey the established government.'* 

If the legishitive, judicial, and executive 
pow'drs of the Constitution and the Union, by 
their express grants, extend to and are to be 
enforced upon every p)erson residing in the 
Union, irrespective of and paramount to all 
State-laivs and poivers^ and by the admission 
of the secessionists, have been thus rightfully 
exercised since 1789, of what effect in sober 
common sense, not to speak of laws or Con- 
stitution, is the act of secession, by any 



THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 23 

State, or by all the People of any one or more 
States, upon the perpetuity of the Constitu- 
tion and Union ? One effect only, yiz. : to 
strengthen the patriotic attachment of all loyal 
citizens to the Union, confirm its perpetuity, 
and enforce the penalties of treason by the 
whole federal strength, and the unanimous 
voluntary aid of all Union-loving citizens, 
south and north. 

If the Federal Government will do its duty 
as required by the Constitution, and enforce 
its supreme authority over all the people, the 
flimsy shelter that no power is granted to co- 
erce a State into obedience, disappears at the 
first shot. The Union and the Government 
bears on every person, and the State Govern- 
ments, merely of municipal and police subordi- 
nate powers, disappear from the issue. 

Without exhausting our subject, we have 
said enough for our argument on the abstract 
question. 

At some seasons, and it may be now, it is 
necessary to put in clear light the essential na- 
ture of our political system. Its simple state- 



24 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

ment refutes every pretext of disloyalty ; and 
above all is it essential, when treason shows 
its horrid front in high places, and with loud 
pretensions claims support from and seeks to 
mislead some of our brethren. 

We will close this paper, by again quoting 
the words of Washington in 1796, in his final 
ap[)eal to his countrymen for all lin^e : 

" The unity of government, which consti- 
tutes you one people, is also now dear to you. 
It i^^> justly so : for it is a main pillar in the 
edifice of your real independence — the support 
of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad, 
of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very 
li!)erty which you so highly prize. But as it 
is easy to foresee, that from different causes and 
from different quarters, much pains will be 
taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in 
your minds the conviction of this truth ; as 
this is the point in your political fortress 
aijjainst which the batteries of internal and 
external enemies will be most constantly and 
actively (though often covertly and insidiously) 
directed — it is of infinite moment that you 



THE QUESTION OF THE PAY. 25 

should properly estimate the immense vahie of 
your national Union to your collective and in- 
dividual hapi)iness, that you should cherish a 
cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment 
to it ; accustoming yourselves to think and 
speak of it as the [)alhidiun:i of your political 
safety and prosperity, watching for its preser- 
vation with jealous anxiety, discountenancing 
whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it 
can in any event be abandoned, and indig- 
nantly frowning upon the first dmoning of 
every attempt to alienate any loortion of our 
country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred 
ties which now Hoik together the various parts." 

RODOLPHUS. 

Febrnary, 27th 1861, 



26 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 



III. 

THE QUESTION" OF THE DAY. 

It is plain from what has been ah'eady said, 
that Secession will not bear the daylight of 
reason, common sense, law, or Constitution, in 
argument on abstract grounds ; and that it is 
also the very evil and danger which Washington 
forewarned his children against for all time. 

But say the secessionists, in the words of 
Howell Cobb, at Montgomery, Ala. : ''Secession 
is an accomplished foot, argue as you may. 
We are out of the Union, and by our own 
inherent sovereisjn riohts, have formed and 
now ordain a new Southern Confederacy, and 
claim recognition as an independent Govern- 
ment." 



THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 27 

The Federal Government cannot without 
suicide, and never will, acknowledge this South- 
ern Confederacy. In their eyes and before the 
law and Constitution, this Confederacy is an 
organized insurrection ; and every person ad- 
hering to these enemies is within the definition 
and penalties of treason. If thus considered 
by the Federal Government, representing all 
the rest of the nation, no civilized govern- 
ment, in alliance with the United States, 
which includes all the powers of the world, 
can, without breaking treaties, law of nations, 
and declaring war against the Union, in any 
way recognize their existence, either de facto 
or de jure. Unbroken peace and commerce 
with the United States, is the cardinal aim and 
interest of all our allies. The victories in 
Mexico raised us at once before Europe, as one 
of the most formidable military powers ; and 
the conquests of our diplomacy, with our social, 
inventive, and national progress and growth, 
rank us as a great power of the world, en- 
throned in a boundless empire, with illimita- 
ble resources, by which alone the old world 



28 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

can sustain their existence. Is it conceivable 
for a n.oment, that the older powers will, for 
any price whatever, exchange, as they must, 
all their old and profitable alliances with the 
present Union, and substitute a flimsy bargain 
with a sand-rope of a mere confederacy at 
pleasure, of a few revolted subjects of the 
Union .^ 

The ofScial journals in Paris and Londoa 
have already conclusively answered th« South 
on this question, by an unconditional and in- 
dignant refusal. By these frank and full state- 
ments from official quarters, we read with 
shame and surprise that Americans — children 
of Washington's hope and faith — have been 
long since so lost to all patriotism, as, under 
the disfj^uise of agents of Southern commercial 
conventions, to visit European courts, with 
offers to sell their birthright as Americans, for 
the mess of pottage of foreign alliance with 
themselves, in hostility to the Constitution and 
Union. They have fawned and eaten dirt be- 
fore the French emperor in vain ; for even 
this great modern usurper, endowed with con- 



THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 29 

summnte sagacity, has turned his back on them 
in well-deserved contempt. 

We think that it has been demonstrated that 
Secession is legally impossible, and that the 
Union remains forever — ^a perpetual obligation 
on all citizens ; and that the remedy for all 
overt acts, besides paper resolutions and 
speeches, is plainly defined by the Constitution 
and laws of the government of the Union. 
We do not mean to be understood as advising 
at once the march of armies, or to open the 
Pandora box of civil war. However plain in 
principle and fact the iniquity may be, as we 
said at the beginning, the Union is strong 
enough to await in calm readiness for the re- 
turning common sense of our seceding brethren^ 
to dissolve the airy fabrics of their vanity and 
wounded political ambition, and bring them 
voluntarily into the even tenor of duty to the 
Union. 

We believe that all these violent Bieasures 
are the work of exasperated and defeated poli- 
ticians ; that the conventions have been made 

unanimous by terrorism, preventing the free- 
3- 



W TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

dora of the polls or ballot or opinion, and that 
the conservative people have neither voted, 
spoken or been heard in this tumult, but are 
yet to speak out in tones of thunder. We 
believe that when their proceedings are sought 
to be changed from paper to practice, and 
these Southern people sought to be driven out 
of peace and safety into political suicide and 
annihilation by literal compliance, the whole 
sober, conservative body of that people will 
either emigrate at once, or, by open resistance, 
overthrow the demagogues and their work, 
and restore the reign of the Constitution and 
the Union ; or, if unsuccessful, inaugurate an 
endless and fatal civil war ; under which this 
Southern Confederacy will sink to its natural 
and speedy ruin, without the necessity of 
foreign invasion, now imminent from all quar- 
ters. 

By seceding, if we are to understand them 
to be in earnest, they voluntarily and abso- 
lutely surrender all right to any Federal prop- 
erty whatsoever. There is no locus poeniten- 
ti<e„ They cannot, on their own theory, first 



THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 31 

secede, and next, when independent and sepa- 
rate, claim an}' division of property with us. 
We never were partners. All Federal prop- 
erty always has been and will be exclusive. 
There can be no shares. We all, over seventy 
years since, surrendered all such rights or 
claims forever. But even admitting such a 
claim, we answer that we refuse to dissolve the 
Union on any terms. We are the vast major- 
ity, and if you choose to consider the Union a 
mere voluntary society of States, as such ma- 
jority we rightfully claim, hold, own, and 
must retain, all Federal property, all alliances 
and all interests of every nature, and which 
property we shall take good care of, and pre- 
vent all interference by you or any other " for- 
eign power." 

The ultimate basis of all financial and bank- 
ing credit in each of the States has long been 
the security of the federal stocks, or, in other 
words, the Federal Government. Always at a 
premium in later years, they have been sought 
for and relied upon at home and abroad as the 
highest form of security for investment, upon 



32 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

whose basis corporations of all kincls, of the 
largest capital and designs, have been created 
and are in successful career. On secession 
theories, (but herein we know they are not 
sincere enough to carry them out.) the federal 
stocks are at once destroyed and repudiated, 
and, in their place, they expect shrewd practi- 
cal men to accept the shinplasters of a South- 
ern Confederacy, embodying every element of 
dissolution, without a treasury or revenue — 
as free trade is to be sovereign — or the 
slightest prospect or means of redemption, 
whilst, unless they also repudiate, they are now 
already immensely indebted, so that the inter- 
est alone of their general indebtedness is an 
annual sum far beyond all possible resources, 
and they seek still further to incur enormous 
debt, by assuming all the expenses of a gov- 
ernment, army, and navy, with its enormous 
expense, ' Credit is impossible on their own 
theory. 

Another immediate barrier lies in the path 
of Secession by any State which did not form 
one of the thirteen original British Colonies, 



THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 33 

whOj as the United Slates of America, forming 
one Government, were, by the treaty of peace 
with Great Britain, recognized as an indepen- 
dent, united, sovereign government, and abso- 
lute proprietor of all the domain once owned 
by the crown or lord proprietors or charter- 
ers on this continent. By success in the war 
of independence they succeeded to all such 
rights, but only in their Federal Union or 
capacity of united government. No treaty 
ever recognized any such rights in the respec- 
tive States. From the era of the Declaration 
of Independence we have ever, as a nation and 
government, been united under a federal head, 
imperfectly under the Confederation, but con- 
solidated by the Constitution. 

In the case of Georgia or South Carolina, 
then, two of the original thirteen, on their 
own theory of Secession, they abandon forever 
all benefit and rights under this treaty, to 
which the Union alone was a party, and must 
revert in their isolation to their original condi- 
tion in 1775, weak, dej)endent, revolted British 
colonies, usurping property and privileges 



34 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

never granted, and throwing away as useless 
all the blood and treasure of the Kevolution^ 
with its thousand heroic memories, besides 
every other substantial acquisition of the Union 
which, since that early period, not yet a cen- 
tury, has, with the step of a young giant, 
crossed to the Pacific and into the plains of 
Mexico, and holds within its beneficent eegis a 
mighty continent. The other four States, 
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida — if 
Texas is not included, to which also the same 
argument applies — were each purchased by the 
Federal Government from the Federal treas- 
ury and the revenues of the Union, although 
by the laws of Congress each was admitted on 
the same footing as the original States, by the 
same law in each case, all laws of the United 
States were made paramount and of the same 
force within each of such new States. The 
absolute sovereignty of the Union, under the 
Constitution, was expressly reserved by their 
creation ; and the political question is now 
offered by them to the rest of the Union, 
whether they will permit these States to rob 



THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 35 

tliern, in open day, of acquisitions of such 
enormous cost ? Such an issue is already 
answered. 

Another interest of vast importance — the 
free navigation and proprietorship of the Mis- 
sissippi, Missouri, and their tributaries, with all 
the commerce of the mighty West and North- 
west to the Bocky Mountains — is involved. 
This was an express condition of the admis- 
sion of Louisiana by the Act of 1812, 8th 
April. She accepted her State existence on 
that condition and agreement with the Union, 
Can her secession repeal it ? There were 
tivo parties to that special condition. Can 
any one believe that all that immense region, 
now the dominant power in the Union, and 
destined always so to remain, whose commerce 
depends on this free navigation, will quietly 
submit to the creation of an independent pro- 
prietary government, holding exclusive pos- 
session of its great outlet to the Gulf of Mexico ? 
The Union is, above all, their first security of 
existence ; and no one can imagine that they 
are ready to accept in its stead the flimsy res- 



36 TRACTS FOR THE WAR, 

oliitions of any confedorac}^, dissolvable at 
pleasure, whilst retaining possession of the 
main artery of their life. On this topic far 
more might well hd said ; hut we think enough 
appears to show Secession impracticable. 

The candid inquirer justly asks, What is 
the occasion of all these secession proceedings ? 
— what is the cause of this quarrel ? Have 
all the Union and the Fed^^nil Government de- 
prived these seceding citizens of any of their 
riohts ? We look into the Constitution and 
find that the Federal Government has never 
had the power so to do ; and its history shows 
the direct reverse. Has any such wrong been 
done by the people of the other States ? We 
find that in many of those States the people, 
the only sovereigns everywhere, have abolished 
slavery within their own respective States, and 
have sometimes enacted, that whatever slave 
should touch their soil, as in England, should 
thereby become free. Their sovereign right and 
power so to enact cannot, on secession theories, 
be questioned. By withdrawing from the Union 
and pretending to be a foreign government, they 



THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 37 

absolutely concede this right, the same as any 
other internal regulation of foreign governments. 
But the question of the validity of such laws is 
at this moment on the calendar for argument 
in the Lemmon case before the Supreme Court 
of the Union, whose decision will, to all loyal 
citizens, be final. Seceders profess to repu- 
diate this tribunal, with all their rights under 
the Constitution and the Union, and all peace- 
able adjustment, and substitute open war. 

We also find that in some of the States the 
popular sentiment, irritated both by Southern 
menace and outrage of person and opinion, and 
also by the false doctrines and clamor of the 
Abolitionists, have enacted laws which prevent 
the enforcement by their citizens of the Fugi- 
tive Slave Laws of Congress. By the jdain 
words of the Constitution, such enactments are 
merely void, and will readily be so declared by 
the competent tribunal. Some oT these States 
have already in advance repealed such hiws, and 
although they have been long existing in these 
States, practically, as has been fully shown, 
they are a dead letter. The supreme authority 
4 



38 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

of the Union and its laws is acknowledged in 
all States, and fugitive slaves are restored to 
their owners by virtue thereof, regardless of 
such State laws and penalties. On the other 
hand, have we ever complained and sought dis- 
solution of the Union because the South claim 
absolute property in their slaves within their 
States, or tar and feather and, by lawless mobs, 
murder abolition missionaries, or any Northern 
man whose political opinions do not suit their 
own, or punish as a crime the instruction of 
slaves, or because the slaveholding States have, 
from the beginning until now, sometimes mo- 
nopolized the Federal offices and patronage ? 
Eecrimination has not been the fault of the 
other States ; on the contrary, the extreme 
South has always boastingly relied on their 
quiet submission. The peaceful remedy of the 
ballot has effected a revolution in political his- 
tory. The Northwestern free States have first 
achieved this utter demolition of the political 
ambition of these secessionist politicians. 
They have themselves alone to thank for it. 
With the power in their hands, they wilfully 



THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 39 

broke with their Democratic Northern friends 
from the North at Charleston and Baltimore, 
threw away their party, its candidates, offices, 
and futurCj and surrendered, in their quarrel, 
to the political enemy, who was thus triumph- 
antly elected by their divisions ; whilst, for all 
this century, whenever united, the Democratic 
party has been and is the undisputed owner 
of place and power in the nation. 

But openly in Congress, say their leaders, 
this regular constitutional election of Lincoln 
to the restricted powers of the Constitution is 
not the cause of our sudden secession and ex- 
treme haste to try, by all expedients, to get 
out of the Union and the power of his adhe- 
rents, before the 4th of March, 1861. How- 
ever inconsistent, we must accept their ovfn 
words, and if so, we almost preclude further 
inquiry for any substantial ground. But we 
will ask, is it because the Chicago platform, 
besides the customary party promises, declared 
open hostility to the introduction of slavery in 
the public domain ? Can any one peruse the 
Dred Scott decision and not be satisfied that 



40 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

such a declaration is directly opposite to the 
supreme law of the land, and therefore any 
attempt by law of Congress for such end is 
absolutely void ? The Constitution, as thus 
settled, prohibits such legislation. 

Since that decision, and certainly the highest 
evidence that these secessionists felt of them- 
selves their security to be in the Constitution 
and the Union, the recorded vote of their 
senators in the United States Senate, only in 
May, 1860, in a majority of 43 to 5, carried a 
resolution, submitted by Mr. Clingman, of 
North Carolina, "^ That the existing condition 
of the Territories of the United States does 
not require the intervention of Congress for 
the protection of " property in slaves." This 
majority — almost an unanimity — of the sena- 
tors who established this record, included the 
senators of all those seceding States, who have 
lately, within less than a year since, outraged 
all senatorial decorum and patriotism, by flour- 
ishing valedictories in the Senate. Further 
comment is needless. 

We need not say that, so far from there 



THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 41 

being any real danger to the slave-owner within 
his State, in the Union, its whole power is 
pledged for his protection ; but dissolve the 
Union, if it were possible, and they themselves 
stab slavery to the heart ; and can any reflec- 
tive mind fail to perceive that the existence of 
slavery in any of the public Territories is not 
the subject of law of Congress, but is only 
dependent on the divine laivs of climate, soil, 
situation, and products ? On cereal land, 
slavery, however jealously forced and strength- 
ened, cannot, as all experience shows, perma- 
nently exist ; and at all times, when new 
States are to be formed from the residents of 
present Territory, on the principle of the Kan- 
sas bill, the question of its existence is to be de- 
cided by the territorial people themselves alone. 
But, driven to their last corner in argument, 
say the secessionists, we dissolve the Union to 
escape the hostile public opinion of the North 
against us and our slavery ! This remedy is 
far worse than the disease ; it is taking yellow 
fever to cure dyspepsia — voluntary suicide ; 

inviting on their own devoted heads all the ig- 
4'^ 



42 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

nominy of their treason, the whole military and 
naval power of the Union and the world ; all 
possihle prohibitory tariffs and blockades ; all 
manner of political, social, and private ruin 
and disgrace, as the result of skulking, like 
cowards, from free discussion in Congress or the 
Supreme Court, on equal ternis in the Union, 
or stifling by bluster, the appeals of conscience 
and reason ; — and all this, because, in this land 
and age of free public opinion, the great ma- 
jority of the Union and of all mankind, see fit 
to differ with them on i\\Q abstract and purely 
moral question of the right or expediency of 
slavery. Does not such a course out-Herod 
the Herod of Abolitionism ? Does it not 
stimulate to over-weening triumph the whole 
brood of Abolition ? Is it not total surrender 
and defeat ? 

But, as if to render all search for motives 
impossible, their Southern Confederacy, so 
called, in process of incubation, adopts, with a 
prohibition of the slave trade and any obstruc- 
tion of the Mississippi, the ivhole present Con- 
stitution of the Union ! By this act, secession 



THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 43 

itself has committed suicide ; the people, obey- 
ing the same laws and government in effect, 
return or remain in the Union, by whatever 
pretext or designation the Constitution may 
bear in the words of politicians. They thereby 
concede and reestablish solemnly the fact, that 
the Constitution of the United States is the 
most perfect of all human governments. The 
frame-work, like mere scaffolding, of Southern 
Confederacy, will, we trust, shortly fall away 
from the noble edifice, and our Southern breth- 
ren thus, by their own action, return to reason 
and allegiance. 

We have forborne to say another word on 
the deep conviction of the community. The 
proofs are not fully developed ; but no one, 
familiar with current events, can doubt that the 
secession movement is but an organized con 
spiracy by its leaders, defeated in the late elec 
tion, to win renewed place and power over their 
misguided and rash Southern supporters ; and, 
that from the era of the disorganization of 
the Democratic party, it has been deeply laid, 



44 TRACTS FOR THE AVAR. 

fostered by the public plunder and connivance 
of recreants iu the Cabinet and office, and 
nursed into its present proportions by the 
weakness, to use no other terms, of the Presi- 
dent. Spirit of Washington and Jackson, de- 
fend that this be really so ! 

Whether this be so or not, what is the rem- 
edy ? is the more important question. The 
secessionists, by their own act of adoption of 
the Constitution, give their own answer, echoed 
back by a large portion of the Union. The 
secessionists are solemnly requested to declare 
their grievances in Congress ; they repudiate 
this obvious preliminary to all negotiation, and 
reject in limine all proffers of compromise. If 
this be the sober sentiment of their people, our 
only remedy and strength is to sit still under 
the Constitution and laws of the Union, and 
let their frenzy run its brief career. 

But we are unwilling to believe them to be 
bevond all accommodation. Without war — 
without aggression — or any form of forcible 
coercion, which are remote from the wishes of 



THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 45 

the Union at large — however they may be 
threatened by fanatical prints, the laws of the 
land are the peaceable and most effectual 
means now in hand of brin^-in"; back our errinjc 
brethren. We have thus far proved our for- 
bearance at many robberies of federal prop- 
erty and shameless insults of the federal 
power ; any of which were felt by the aggres- 
sors to be just cause of war. 

In return, we find Congress submitting and 
debating propositions for accommodation and 
settlement, and in the Capitol, at the same 
time, propositions and offers of a like purport 
are preparing, by a convention of the delegates 
from twenty States — free and slaveliolding — 
nearly all the rest of the Union. The seces- 
sionists refuse to be present in either body, or 
to state there any grievances ; but on all hands 
the olive branch of peaceful settlement is pre- 
paring. When these proposals are matured 
and offered, no doubt in another week, and be- 
fore the ashes are gathered over this dying Ad- 
ministration, it will be proper to discuss their 



46 TRACTS FOR THE WAR, 

merits ; at present it would depart from the 
object of these papers as stated in their out- 
set. 

KODOLPHUS, 

March 6, 1861. 



OUR CIVIL WAR. 47 



IV. 

OUR CIVIL WAR. 

From the vear 1789, the inauguration of 
the Government of the Union under the Con- 
stitution, to the present day not a year has 
elapsed in which the great powers of the world 
have not waged war, either with revolution in 
their own states, or with foreign enemies. 
These wars and revolutions have surpassed all 
history in their sanguinary and gigantic char- 
acter. 

This period of seventy-two years, which 
English and American writers expatiate upon, 
as the era of wonderful progress of arts and 
civilization^ equals in the number of its wars, 
and far surpasses in their magnitude, all the 
records of the past. 

No one, in the least familiar with its history, 



48 TKACTS FOR THE WAR. 

can doubt this ; nor that the supreme energies 
of civilized man, throughout this period of the 
highest civilization, have been given to war, 
which has carried on its fiery chariot- wheels all 
the arts, skill, and science of mankind. 

In previous centuries, history proves only an 
endless catalogue of battles and sieges ; and in 
such history the republics of the world may 
claim the pre-eminence. 

War is, then, the normal, primary condition 
of civilized man, as with the savage ; the only 
difference is that civilized war is vastly more 
sanguinary and devastating. 

Peace is accidental and temporary ; local, 
and never general. 

Since we became a nation, although divinely 
harbored, on this distant continent, away fjom 
European collisions — in this brief [)eri()d, which 
we are apt to call unbroken })eace, we hav^e 
had since 1789, besides our Revolutionary 
War, — our arming against France, our second 
war with England, war with Algiers and with 
Mexico as foieign foes, and dij)lomatic rup- 
tures with S[)ain, England, France, and other 



OUR CIVIL WAR. 49 

powers ; this government has been called on to 
suppress organized treason in no less than eight 
different and successive forms ; besides con- 
stantly waging war, on a vast scale, on our 
frontiers, with the Indians and the Mormons. 
For such a nation, from its infancy with 
every inducement to remain at peace, our 
own brief history confirms the position, that 
humanity, under the Ireest and highest form of 
government and culture — like the savage, and 
fiir worse — pursues the same primary and nor- 
mal rule of war. 

Such is the truth of history — sacred and 
secular. We believe fully in a Divine, Om- 
niscient, Omnipresent, Ever-guiding Provi- 
dence. 

We believe that He is the same eternal 
power that led out the millions of Israel from 
Egypt, with a strong hand and a mighty arm ; 
that established, in his own theocracy of the 
Jews, with whom he visibly dwelt for so many 
ages, and to whom he gave the hopes of man- 
kind, a thoroughly organized standing army, 
with orders to march forward to the conquest, 
5 



50 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

slaiisrhter, and utter devastation, of all the 

CD J ' 

surroundins: nations ; who blessed them for 
their warlike valor and patriotism, and cursed 
them for peaceful compromise of truth ; and 
who made and recorded their whole history, 
till its last hour, when it expired in blood and 
flame at Jerusalem, one endless battle-field. 
Israel was his peculiar people, whom he de- 
lighted to honor. 

The New Testament from heaven, heralded 
by the angels as peace on earth, goodwill to 
men, came first to the Jews, and through 
them was carried to other nations. It is ad- 
dressed to the same humanity, by the same 
God. Whilst it blesses the peacemaker, and 
attributes war to the evil passions of man, and 
preaches the doctrines of forgiveness of injur- 
ies, of mercy, and charitj^, — with its future 
revv^ards and spiritual system, it enjoins on its 
followers to render to Ceesar the things that 
are CaBsar's ; to honor the king or supreme 
governor ; to obey all magistrates and those in 
authority ; to diligently and contentedly pur- 
sue their calling, whether soldier or citizen, in 



* OUR CIVIL WAR. 51 

God's fear ; and to remember that the magis- 
trate doth .not bear the sword in vain, — while 
thus enjoining entire loyalty to existing and 
rightful authority and law, it leaves its dis- 
ciples entirely fiee in all their civil relations ; 
its kingdom not of this world ; its disciples 
lambs amono* wolves ; it reco2:nizes the same 
normal condition of humanity — war, in all the 
ages, until the Millenium. 

He that disobeys the patriot summons to 
war is no Christian, and unworthy to enjoy the 
blessing of peace. 

In our century thus far, the fruits of war 
have been progress in civilization and freedom. 

Take man as he is, and always has been, 
and, instead of dilating on the alleged barbar- 
ism of war, we must admit that Providence 
has thus far permitted it as the great agent of 
progress. 

But the glorious and enthusiastic rally of 
the loyal and patriotic States, at the call of 
the President, dispenses with any need of ab- 
stract speculation. 

The infamous assault on eidity men at 



52 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

Sumter, by ten thousand of the Southern 
chivahy of treason, followed by even the more 
infamous proclamation of Jefferson Davis, in- 
viting the pirates of the South to prey on our 
shipping, and their infamous boast that Wash- 
ington will be in their hands in less than sixty 
days, has proved a louder tocsin than the news 
of Bunker Hill. 

The lightning flashed it north, east, and 
west ; not a week has elapsed, and already, 
instead of only 75,000 men, a million has 
buckled on its armor, and ready, nay crowding, 
to get at this crew of Algerine corsairs of the 
sea and land. 

A hundred millions of money from this city 
alone is now ready and offered to the govern- 
ment, as much and perhaps more from other 
cities and sections ; and million after million of 
men, with countless shipping, are ready at call. 
At this hour of our history we are above all 
politics and parties. We have ceased to dis- 
cuss the specious falsehoods of Secession ; they 
have declared war against the most benignant 
government that ever blessed mankind, which 



OUR CIVIL WAR, 53 

from the very outset of the rebellion for the 
last weary five months and more, has with for- 
bearing magnanimity submitted to every out- 
rage at their hands, and in every form ten- 
dered to these shameless traitors the olive 
branch of peace. They now throw down the 
gauntlet of open piracy, slave trade, and 
war. 

They have thus invited on their devoted 
heads all the ignominy of their treason, the 
whole military and naval power of the Union 
and the world, all prohibitory tariffs and block- 
ades and devastation, all manner of political, 
social, and private ruin and disgrace ; and all 
this as the result of skulking as coward traitors 
from free discussion in Congress or the Supreme 
Court, on equal terms in the Union, or stifling 
by bluster the voice of conscience and reason ; 
and declare war and piracy, because, in this 
land and age of free opinion and free speech, 
the vast majority of the Union and all man- 
kind see fit to differ with them on the right or 
expediency of slavery, and its expansion beyond 
their borders. 



54 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

Spirit of Washington ! was ever a cause 
more worthy of your patriot zeal ? 

We feel that we speak the sentiment of the 
loyal Union, 

Let this war, now forced upon us, be speedy, 
overwhelming to extermination. Nothing but 
the most thorough triumph and destruction is 
adapted to the crisis. Let us have no delays, 
no Florida campaign of endless length. With 
brave men in nations, and money in countless 
millions, and all civilized nations as our allies, 
this contest should be short, and as destructive 
as the fiercest traitor of the South can desire. 

Who can doubt the result ? Who can fail 
to see the fleeing slaves, and the uprising 
Union men of the South, joining our forces for 
the destruction of these self-elected traitor 
demagogues ? 

Let the war be long or short, the Union is 
fully ready ; and with the war comes universal 
relief from suspense, and, into all commercial 
countries, reviving commerce and affluence. 

New York, April 18, 1861. 



THE SUBJUGATION. 55 



y. 

THE SUBJUGATION. 

The rebel traitors to God and raan, of the 
South, affect to despise the power of this gov- 
ernment and to rally their courage by asserting 
that it is impossible to subjugate the South, 
however numerous and great may be our con- 
quests ; they will make all their swamp-coasts, 
and border, fastnesses for defence, and rallying 
points for new armies, to wage a ceaseless gue- 
rilla warfare ; and with shameless insolence 
they pretend to be the successors of our patriot 
sires, and waging a Revolutionary war on their 
own soil for the defence of their homes and 
altars. 

Our purpose is to show that subjugation of 
the South — complete and entire — is inevitable. 

The Roman empire was created and main- 



5G TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

tained by its army. By the Testament of 
Augustus^ its boundaries were fixed on the 
north at the wall of Agricola, or near the 
present line of the Caledonian canal, in Scot- 
land, the Danube and Scythia, or modern Kus- 
sia, on the continent ; on the west by the At- 
lantic Ocean ; on the south, by the African 
desert ; and on the east, by the Euphrates. 
These limits v;erc only once altered by his 
successors ; in the conquest of Dacia, by Tra- 
jan, which carried the north-eastern boundary 
into Scythia — up to the river Dniester. 

Until the middle of the eighteenth century 
this vast area comprised the whole civilized 
portion of the old world, and with some excep- 
tion, it does so still. 

According to the accurate research of Gib- 
bon, the aggregate population of the Roman 
empire, or as the Gospel names it, ^' tJie tvhole 
world," in the time of the Emperor Claudius, 
about the era of the outset of its wondrous 
career, was one hundred and twenty millions 
of souls, of whom fairly two thirds were barba- 
rian tribes ; many of which, as in Britain and 



THE SUBJUGATION. 57 

Germany, on the authority of Tacitus, were 
of the most warlike character ; of these, Brit- 
ain alone contained fifty tribes, who twice 
repulsed the legions of Ctesar, and whose 
strength only yielded after a century of war- 
fare ; while Germany swarmed with numerous 
savage nations, against whom the fortified 
camps on the Danube alone protected the em- 
pire, until overborne by the masses of the 
Goths and Huns. 

By the ratios of modern census, during about 
two hundred years from the accession of Au- 
gustus, in which Kome held peaceful and un- 
disputed sway over the world, unbroken by 
foreign wars of magnitude, its population must 
have between two hundred and two hundred 
and fifty millions of souls. 

The highest computation of its entire army 
and navy, at the maximum of its strength and 
grandeur, is fixed by Gibbon at not to exceed 
four hundred and fifty thousand men. 

Their slaves, a vast multitude, do not appear 
to be computed in their estimate of population, 
and of course were not in their army. 



58 TRACTS FOR THE WAR, 

It is impossible to estimate their number ; 
the data are wanting; some wealthy Komans 
are stated to have owned twenty thousand : on 
such a basis all that can be estimated is a vast 
indefinite multitude to be added to the aggre- 
gate of population returns, whilst it proved a 
source of weakness and self-destruction to the 
empire. 

A Legion — with all its auxiliaries, then, was 
formed of twelve thousand five hundred men. 

The entire maximum average military and 
naval strength required to subjugate the whole 
civilized ivorld, and which kept it in unbroken 
peaceful submission to Rome for near two cen- 
turies, and would have continued to maintain 
its subjection, and the unity of the empire, 
but for its own internal corruption — was but 
thirty-six legions in number at the outside, or 
four hundred and fifty thousand, against two 
hundred millions of barbarians exclusive of 
the numerous millions of slaves. 

By our modern conscriptions fifteen millions 
of Eomans were subject to military duty. 

When we add to these results the fact that 



THE SUBJUGATION. 59 

all these legions, with the exception of the 
Pretoi-ians, were posted in their fortified camps, 
in the heart of their conquests ; at great dis- 
tances from Rome, never in cities ; that the 
military roads, with their six-mile posts and re- 
lays, traversed the empire, from all its legions to 
Eome, its centre, we see that numerical strength 
of armies is not the only means of suhjugation. 
The discipline of the Roman legions and the 
terror of their eagles were not enough to suhdue 
the fierce barbarians. Germany, Gaul, and 
Britain long resisted with success. The wea- 
pons of the Roman army were often unequal to 
those of their enemies. Surrounding and sup- 
porting the legion were the Roman laws and 
civilization; and municipal institutions grew on 
the sites and vicinity of their camps, with free 
toleration of religion. In the lapse of genera- 
tions their humanizing influence subdued the 
wild barbarian, and made the privilege of Ro- 
man citizenship of the highest value to the de- 
scendants of those who hated the name of Rome. 
Saul of Tarsus and Constantine of Britain, 
alike, with countless others, are examples. 



60 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

From the era of the Antonines till the con- 
quest of Byzantium by the Turks in 1453, 
through all those twelve centuries of corruption 
in its government, of weakness, decline, and 
fall, its military strength in numbers never ap- 
proached the above, but steadily diminished. 

This aggregate of the military strength of 
Kome has been immensely surpassed by single 
nations, once their provinces, in modern history, 
— France under Louis XIV., and again by Na- 
poleon, for the invasion of Russia. The coali- 
tion of England and Germany in 1815 against 
Napoleon placed a million in arms, besides the 
vast navy that held all the seas against France ; 
and the united naval and military strength of 
the allies before Sebastopol, exceeded that of 
Rome. 

The present regular army of France, exclu- 
sive of its navy, comprises five hundred thou- 
sand men ; that of England exceeds three 
hundred thousand men, besides its fleets. 

The present entire population of France is 
about thirty-seven millions, with a government 
at peace, although revolutionary and aggres- 



THE SUBJUGATION. 61 

sive in its diplomacy, as yet without foreign or 
domestic war. 

The present standing armies and navies of 
Europe combine an aggregate of nearly four 
millions of men ; and this vast number, yearly 
increasing, is now required by these govern- 
ments to hold in peace the same area of empire 
which Eome held in subjection with less than 
half a million, as well as thereby extended its 
power in Asia. 

Such is the result, notwithstanding the vast 
superiority of modern arms, securing, as we 
are told, the great reduction of combatants ; 
and also the great advance and extent of mod- 
ern civilization. 

Surely, the Koman legionary in his helmet 
and mail, with his buckler, sword, and pike, 
and severe discipline, through all the ages 
before artillery, must have been a far superior 
power to the modern soldier, armed with all 
the results of science and civilization ; and the 
Roman empire, with all its corruptions, must 
have been of vastly greater strength than all 
or any of its modern successors. 
6 



62 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

Familiar from childhood with the exploits of 
the Koman legions, many of us are apt to 
imagine the legionary to have been of gigantic 
stature and strength. 

In the Museo Borbonico, at Naples, saved 
by the ashes from Vesuvius, is the skeleton 
and armor of the last of the Romans of the 
age of Titus. He is a legionary, who stood 
guard at the gate of Pompeii, at the time of its 
destruction. 

A modern of six feet stature and average 
proportions, would find his armor nearly a foot 
too small. He would have been rejected by 
Frederick of Prussia and Napoleon, and would 
scarcely be accepted for the poorest infantry of 
modern times. 

Of the military strength of Greece we have 
no accurate data. It could not have been very 
great. Its wars of history WTre of internal 
revolution or defence, not of foreign conquest. 
It is curious, how^ever, to note in this con- 
nection, that whilst all the rest of Greece re- 
tained the phalanx of sixteen thousand men 
fighting eighteen deep in close array, Sparta 



THE SUBJUGATION. G3 

divided its army into ^^ moral" or regiments, 
commanded by colonels and lieutenants — the 
size of its regiments varying from one thousand 
to two hundred and fifty men ; and that their 
uniform was scarlet by the law of Lycurgus, 
whose reason for that color was that it would 
not show the stain of blood. 

From Soarta, therefore, we derive the mod- 
ern regiment with its officers, and the scarlet 
uniform of England, which first achieved its 
victories on the Ironsides of Cromwell at Mar- 
sten Moor, and has since encircled the globe 
with its valor. 

In 1776 the whole population of the original 
thirteen United States — New Hampshire to 
Georgia — the Atlantic border, was 2,616,300 
souls. 

In ISOO it was 5,300,000 in all. 

In 1815 it was about 8,000,000 in all. 

In 1860, of our present 32,000,000— against 
less than eight millions of whites in all, in the 
slave States, are twenty millions in the free 
States, besides four millions of slaves. During 
the seven years' war of the Kevolution, in all 



64 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

two hundred thousand men enhsted in our Con- ; 
tinental army, averaging between twenty and 
thirty thousand men annually. 

Our second war with Great Britain was 
fought by far less than one hundred thousand ; 
its crowning victories were by sea and on the 
lakes, although our army won imperishable 
laurels, amidst western treachery and disgrace, . 
on our northern frontier and at New Or- 
leans. 

The Mexican war, conquering a vast terri- 
tory and nation, of far more numerous armies, 
led by brave men of military skill, was fought 
by the masterly genius of Taylor and Scott, 
with less than thirty thousand men. 

All these wars of our history were waged to 
triumph against vast odds. We conquered 
the overwhelming military superiority of Eng- 
land — the terror of the world — the conquerors 
Waterloo, and whose advance was sustained 
by tories and traitors throughout the country, 
at the period of our greatest weakness, a feeble 
handful of people, without money, army, with 
little more than our patriot courage, guided by 



THE SUBJUGATION. 65 

Washington, Franklin, and their glorious as- 
sociates and successors. 

The civil war in England, 1642-1651, dur- 
ing which its entire population averaged four 
millions of souls, may furnish some data, and 
to some minds an analogy in the great issues 
involved in the struggle ; less than one hundred 
thousand men in all, on both sides, waged this 
whole war. Fifty thousand soldiers, under 
Cromwell, utterly subjugated England, Scot- 
land, and Ireland, king and parliaments. 

More complete mastery was never attained ; 
and no period in English history can surpass 
the union and loyalty of all classes to the 
government founded by Cromwell on the vic- 
tories of his army. 

It was not the subjection of the co7iquered, 
ready to revolt, on the removal of the army. 
On the peace the whole army was disbanded 
and returned to civil life ; and instead of 
being lawless banditti, they all resumed their 
former civil industry, and became as eminent in 
the walks of private and social duty as they 
had been in the field. The government had 
6- 



66 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

no longer any need of its army ; it was strong 
enough in the respect and loyalty of its sub- 
jects ; no standing army was required or main- 
tained. 

So it will be, as it has always been with us, 
a few victorious fields of battle, and the whole 
South is at our feet begging for mercy. 

The soldiers of Cromwell were his own 
selection ; they were the sons of respectable 
farmers, citizens, and mechanics ; industrious, 
moral, patriotic, and with strong interest in the 
soil, and its government. Cromwell gathered 
his army in 1644, two years after the first bat- 
tle of Edgehill. Lord Essex commanded dur- 
ing these two years, for the Parliament, men, 
as Cromwell said, far inferior to the Royal 
forces ; " tapsters, serving men, and fellows of 
the meaner sort," and with such troops could 
never trust them in action or pursuit. The 
king constantly gained in strength, and in two 
years held three-fourths of the kingdom. 

Cromwell drilled his new levies to the se- 
verest rule, fired their zeal by the chaplains 
and his personal address. They passed prepar- 



THE SUBJUGATION. 67 

atory months in drilling, preaching, and pray- 
ing ; and at their first appearance in battle — 
Marston Moor — they were found not only in- 
vincible, but swept the splendid army of cava- 
lier aristocracy to destruction ; and thenceforth 
marched on conquering and to conquer, never 
beaten, never checked, nothing could withstand 
them. The terror of their prowess is immortal 
yet. 

Of the same material, in general, is our 
army composed, and with like drill and moral 
discipline. With the ablest living soldier at 
their head, what hinders their like career of 
conquest ? Who are the foes ? Except in 
contradictory newspaper statements we know 
little of them. We find no army, no organi- 
zation, few arms, no money, and what is worse, 
no cause to fight for, save the ambition of their 
leaders. The poorest whites — " mud-sills " as 
they call them — are forced into the ranks. 

The self-styled aristocracy must all .be 
officers ; and without commissariat, with gene-- 
ral drunkenness and lack of all moral disci- 
pline or drill, however some may abound in 



68 TRA.CTS FOR THE WAR. 

courage^ the whole army is at the outset thor- 
oughly demoralized and disabled. 

Traitors and thieves never fight as armies ; 
a few desperate leaders may ; but bluster and 
bravado, in which they are all so proficient^ 
are the surest proofs of cowardice. 

Contrast this with the calm, earnest, united, 
determined, universal arming of the loyal 
States. In less than six weeks, out of the 
ground, as it were, sprang up two hundred 
thousand men, ready armed ; farmers, mechan- 
ics, merchants, with patriot interest in the 
Union, of thorough drill, completely equipped, 
and supplied with an overflowing treasury, a 
vast fleet, with endless resources in reserve, 
the navy, the government, and alliance of the 
world, — with capable leaders, who does not see 
uttc7^ subjugation and entire victory for the 
glorious star-spangled banner that now, and 
has so often, led us in triumph over all our 
foes ? 

This great arming of the Union has no 
parallel in history. Napoleon, for the last 
great struggle of France against the world in 



THE SUBJUGATION. 69 

arms J forcing all conscriptions with all the 
energy of despair in 1815, in two months 
and a half got together less than 150,000 
men ; all he could raise to face their enemies 
in the Waterloo campaign ; and before that 
action, only 75,000 men, the flower of his 
army, veterans and marshals who had followed 
the eagles of that Alexander through all the 
battle-fields of Europe, alone remained to try 
the issue of dominion over Europe. 

Not a volunteer was in his ranks. The 
English force was largely volunteer recruits. 

But four years since, and all India, with its 
two hundred millions of souls, was in the 
power of the Sepoy rebels. A vast continent 
was suddenly seized from the British crown ; 
and the world sickened at the horrors of the 
Sepoys. They began, long before, their insid- 
ious arts and plans to seize all the government 
property, and banish all loyal officers and sub- 
jects ; it was a war of religion, treachery, and 
the uprising of all that is base in heathenism. 
For the first year it w^as a desperate struggle ; 
England seemed overmatched ; but 100,000 



70 TRACTS FOR THE WAR. 

troops under skilful leaders conquered their 
strongholds, and drove forth the rebels ; and 
ever since their complete and sudden subjec- 
tion has prevailed. 

Our Indian mutiny has by like acts and 
treachery culminated ; the disciplined valor of 
the Union will sweep to destruction these 
Southern Sepoys ; and they, with their flying 
leaders, if they escape the hemp or ballet, will 
seek their natural place of huccaneerSj Walker 
filibusters, and soon gain the reward of all 
other pirates. 

The mighty Union sentiment of the South- 
ern people, no longer subdued by terror, will 
rise as suddenly and powerfully ; the slaves 
will flee ; and, to their own surprise, a thor- 
ough social regeneration will begin. IS'orthern 
enterprise will buy their soil, and, with free 
industry, will produce for the first time in their 
history of constant decline, profitable returns ; 
and the South, instead of depending solely on 
the annual hazards of but one crop — cotton — 
always produced by slaves at a loss, will, like 



THE SUBJUGATION. 71 

the North, enter the markets of the world in 
every field of industry and culture. 

Great are the blessings already of this united 
patriotism of the Union ; but greater far will 
be its beneficent results to South and North. 

New York, May 25, 1861. 



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